“Because boys have freedom?”
She nodded sharply.
“I’ll tell you something,” Nottingham confided. “It only looks that way.”
“What do you mean?” she wondered, her attention engaged.
“A man gets married, they have a child, often five or six,” he explained. “Who do you think has to earn the money to feed that family? Who has to find a job that pays enough? Aye, it’s the wife who’s looking after the children all day, but it’s the man who has to make the brass. That’s responsibility, not freedom.”
“But you can go where you like, when you like, stay out drinking until all hours…”
“True enough,” he conceded. “And there are plenty who do. But let me ask you, would you want a husband who did that?”
“No, of course not,” Emily answered. “I’d expect him to be more considerate.”
“So then, if you were a man, you wouldn’t be like that,” Nottingham said after a moment. He was remembering his own father, a man who’d been anything but considerate to his wife and son.
“I suppose not,” she agreed slowly.
“Drinking and whoring doesn’t make someone a man,” Nottingham said with quiet conviction, “and don’t you ever forget it.”
“But whores can become ladies. Moll Flanders – ”
“You’ve read that?” he asked sharply.
“Yes – ” Emily began, but before she could continue the door opened and Mary and Rose bustled in.
“I’m sorry we’re late,” Mary said in a merry voice. “We were talking and lost track of the time. Good Lord, we need more light in here. It’s almost pitch black.”
“That’s all right,” Nottingham told her. “Gave us time for a chat.” And he winked at Emily.
Later, after the girls were in bed, Nottingham and his wife sat by the dying fire. He was dozing intermittently, jarring awake as his chin fell on his chest.
“So was it daggers drawn earlier with Emily?” Mary asked.
He shook his head. “Not at all. Not even a cross word,” he answered happily. “We could have talked a lot longer.”
She raised her eyebrows, not quite believing him.
“Then that’s a change.”
“She’s just beginning to learn that the world is a smaller place than she’d hoped.” He hesitated, then asked, “Do you ever feel like all this isn’t enough?”
“All what?” said Mary, confused.
“This.” He groped to put the idea into words. “Me, the girls, this house. Don’t you ever feel your life should be more than that?”
“Ah,” she replied with gentle understanding. “So that’s the problem. I’m content with this, Richard. I always have been. It’s easier now than when we started out, but I was happy then, too, you know.” She reached over and took his hand, her fingers lightly stroking his palm. “But I knew what I wanted and I got it.”
“Emily’s different.”
“I suppose she always has been.” Mary sighed and started to lose herself in the past. “She was never one for playing with the other girls, do you remember that? She always seemed happiest on her own. And after she learnt to read, it was all we could do to pry her away from a book.”
“True,” he smiled. He couldn’t remember all the times he’d found her reading in bed when she should have been sleeping.
“Rose is like me. She’ll be quite content to settle down with her nice lad and have a family. But I don’t know that Emily’s ever going to be happy,” Mary said with a tinge of sadness. “Not really happy. And I know that’s a terrible thing to say about your own daughter, but it’s true. I think deep down she knows it, too. That’s why she’s so angry. She just wasn’t made for the world as it is.”
Nottingham knew she wanted to talk about this, but he was uncomfortable. He felt at home with facts, even ideas, but emotions always left him uneasy and restless.
“So what do we do about her?” he asked, hoping his wife would have an answer.
“I honestly don’t know, Richard,” Mary replied with a helplessness that reflected his own. “I wish I did.”
“She told me something that worried me.”
“What’s that?”
“Did you know she’d read Moll Flanders?”
Mary laughed lightly, her eyes twinkling in the dim light.
“Of course I did, Richard. Who do you think lent it to her?”
The sun was shining, the sky clear and blue, with just the faintest breeze coming from the west. It was as if summer was enjoying its final gasp. Normally Nottingham would have enjoyed the weather, but now it seemed to be making a mockery of the day.
He’d borrowed a cart to take Meg to the church, and he was soberly dressed in his best coat and breeches, sweating under their weight as the grey woollen hose itched against his calves. The old woman was in the same dress she’d worn the last time he’d seen her – probably the only one she owned, he thought – leaning heavily against him for support as they walked very slowly on the path through the churchyard to the imposing wooden doors.
Mary and the girls were already inside, sitting in the front pew. Mary put her arms around Meg’s hunched shoulders, whispering in her ear as the new curate began the service.
He spoke sonorously, letting the litany of the words flow smoothly, much to Nottingham’s surprise. He’d expected Crandall to rush through the funeral. Cookson would have given him the task, and Pamela was nothing to him. He glanced at the others; Meg’s face was in her hands, Rose and Mary both looked down and Emily was gazing at the curate.
Outside, they followed the cheap coffin to the waiting grave in the far corner of the churchyard. The curate took his time, letting the power of the words flow into the listeners. Reluctantly, Nottingham had to admit that Crandall was a powerful, mesmerising speaker. He watched the curate pause, eyes moving around the mourners to gauge the effect of his voice, his glance lingering on Rose, and a little longer on Emily, before returning to the verses. Finally it was all done, the ashes to ashes and dust to dust, and Nottingham followed Meg in tossing a clod of dirt into the grave. Another life spent so fast, to be covered and forgotten as the days went by. At least Pamela had a proper burial, he thought, and remembered another whore in a pauper’s grave.
As he walked away, Crandall called to him and took him aside.
“I wanted you to know I don’t approve of this,” he said in a low, angry voice.
“Of what, Mr Crandall?”
The curate’s eyes were dark. He spoke quickly.
“Of burying a whore here. Of giving her a service in the church. Her profession was evil.”
Nottingham answered slowly, coldly, and carefully.
“Then understand this for your pains. You did your duty for a woman who was brutally killed, a woman who’d once been the servant in my house, someone who was loved. Think on that. Then try remembering that Our Lord took in Mary Magdalene. Wasn’t she supposed to have been a whore?”
He turned on his heel and walked away.
They rode back to Harrison’s almshouses. Mary, Rose and Emily would stay with Meg for a little while. Nottingham would return the cart and get back to work; Thursday was already slipping away. Sometimes he wondered if death wasn’t easier than life.
Sedgwick was waiting for him at the jail, nibbling the remains of a pie that was probably his dinner. He stood up quickly as Nottingham entered, crumbs falling from his cheap, worn waistcoat on to the floor.
“Sit down, John,” the Constable said, pulling off his coat and draping it over the chair. He felt exhausted, drained by the funeral, his heart empty. “Did you find anything more yesterday?”
“Oh aye,” Sedgwick grinned broadly. “I’ve finally got someone who saw Morton Monday night.”
“Oh?” Suddenly Nottingham felt alert again, rubbing his hands together in anticipation. “Where was this?”
“The Talbot.” The deputy let the name roll off his tongue.
The Constable raised his eyebrow
s in surprise. “I wonder why such an upstanding man of God was in a place like that,” he said. “It’s not filled with the holy spirit.”
The Talbot was notorious in Leeds. It had a pit for cock fighting, and a reputation as a thieves’ den, where violence was exchanged as common currency.
“Maybe he didn’t know what it was like,” Sedgwick suggested graciously.
“A couple of minutes inside should have told him all he needed to know,” Nottingham dismissed the idea. “You’ve got a good witness?”
“A man called Martin Hooper. He was at the Market Cross on Saturday, saw Morton preach. Called him ‘that bloody mouthy bastard.’ No mistaking the identity.” Sedgwick paused. He’d been carefully hoarding the last piece of information. “And he says Morton was drinking with Carver.”
“Carver?” Nottingham sat upright quickly. “What time was this?”
“He claims it was about ten.”
“And we know Carver left the Ship around nine with Pamela,” the Constable mused. “Did your witness say anything about her?”
Sedgwick shook his head.
“I asked him if there’d been a girl about. He just looked at me as if I was daft and said that of course there were bloody girls about, but he didn’t remember one in particular.”
Nottingham rubbed his knuckles over his chin. She might have been there, taken a shine to Morton’s money, and the old drunk could have become jealous… it was possible.
“Let’s have Carver in,” he ordered abruptly. “I want to hear him explain this.”
“I’ve already got a couple of the men on it,” Sedgwick answered. “But I think we’ll have better luck tonight once he goes out drinking.”
The Constable nodded his agreement. Like some strange beast, Carver only seemed to emerge as the daylight faded.
“Just make sure you find him before he gets pissed, then. We don’t need another fight.”
13
Nottingham needed information on Carver, and he knew the best place to find it. The merchants, the business elite who brought money into Leeds through their woollen cloth dealings, effectively ran the place by controlling the Corporation. Most of them would be unwilling to talk about someone who’d once been one of their own, even as dissolute and broken a character as George Carver.
But there was one man who might help. Three years before, Tom Williamson had been named the city’s Cloth Searcher. It was an ancient office, and largely ceremonial, although Williamson had taken it seriously. During his year long tenure he and Nottingham had become friends, quite easily and unconsciously straddling the social barrier that divided them. They didn’t see too much of each other now, but the goodwill had remained.
It was early afternoon and that meant there was a fair chance Williamson would be at Garroway’s Coffee House on the Head Row, enjoying a dish of tea. The merchants tended to gather there, conducting business in its informal surroundings, reading the Leeds Mercury and the London newspapers, or idly passing the time.
As Nottingham entered the building, he was struck by the smells, so exotic and rich. There was coffee, powerful and enticing, and underneath a deeper, more mysterious hint of chocolate. He’d tried them both, once, but didn’t care for the taste of either, too alien to a palate that was used to small beer and ale. He’d tasted tea, too, and enjoyed that. But all these were luxuries, far beyond his meagre pocket.
Williamson was in the corner, shoulders hunched, engrossed in the backgammon board in front of him. In his mid-thirties and tall, the merchant had the most straightforward, honest face Nottingham had ever seen, which probably wasn’t a great business asset, he thought wryly. And he was a poor liar. But from all the rumours, his business was thriving. Williamson’s father had died the year before, and now Tom was running it himself, making sound decisions and prospering even more than before. He was plainly dressed, his breeches and coat of good quality, the waistcoat carefully tailored in length and cut, but sober, the buckles on his shoes dull metal rather than gold.
His roll finished, Williamson looked up and spotted the Constable, a smile curling his mouth upwards.
“Richard!” he greeted warmly. “What brings you to this den of iniquity on a lovely afternoon?”
Nottingham returned the smile, genuinely pleased to see the man. It had been too long. “I wanted a word with you, actually.”
For a moment Williamson looked nonplussed, as if searching his memory for any wrongdoing. Satisfied, he said happily, “Well, have a seat, and we can talk while I thrash Mr Greenwood here.”
“Better in private, if you don’t mind.”
“I see.” Williamson gazed at his companions. “Looks as if luck’s on your side today, Jeremiah.” Picking up his immaculate tricorn hat off the bench he followed Nottingham outside.
“What’s all the mystery about?” he asked as they began to stroll up the Head Row.
“I’m after a bit of information, Tom,” Nottingham admitted bluntly.
The merchant tilted his head slightly in curiosity.
“Something a little delicate, obviously. Information on whom?”
“George Carver.”
“Oh dear.” Williamson wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Poor old George is in trouble again, is he? What do you want to know about him?”
“I know he lost his money, but I’ve never heard how it happened,” Nottingham said. “As far as anyone can tell, he doesn’t do a stroke of work, but he still has somewhere to live and the brass to go out drinking every night. I thought you might know something about that.”
“It’s not really a secret, I suppose,” Williamson began readily. “It’s just that it’s never seemed like anything to talk about. I was just a lad when it happened, so I heard most of it from my father. It seems George found a new buyer in Holland – this was back when they were still a big market for us. Good references, everything you could want. Things went well. After a couple of shipments they placed a big order, asked for credit, and George extended it to them. I’m not sure exactly what happened, but they never paid.”
“Very unfortunate,” the Constable agreed, although it wasn’t an uncommon business tale.
“If that had been all, he could probably have weathered it,” Williamson continued. “Most of us keep a reserve for emergencies. But George liked to play cards, too, and he was a heavy gambler. Sometimes he won, sometimes he lost, but he was in the middle of a losing streak when all this happened.”
“And everything collapsed around him?” Nottingham asked.
The merchant nodded. “The lot, even his family. Everyone thought he’d kill himself, but he didn’t.” He paused. “Well, not immediately. He seems to be teasing out his death in drink.”
They’d walked a few yards before the Constable asked, “So how does he live now?”
“He has a pension.”
Nottingham gazed quizzically at the other man. He’d never heard of such a thing before.
“Who from?”
“Us,” Williamson explained. “We each put in a small sum every year, and he’s given a weekly allowance. It’s enough to put a roof over his head and keep him fed. And enough for drink too, obviously.”
“So Mr Carver is still a man of independent means.”
“More dependent means, I suppose,” Williamson countered wryly. “What’s he done?”
“You know the preacher who was murdered?”
“I heard about it,” the merchant said. “But I suppose everyone did.”
“It looks like Carver was the last one to see him alive.”
Williamson stopped and stared in surprise. “Come on, Richard. You’re not seriously suggesting Carver killed him. I know he can get rowdy, but he wouldn’t murder anyone.”
“No, I’m not suggesting anything,” Nottingham replied evenly. “I just want to talk to him, and I thought it’d help if I knew more about him. Nothing more than that.”
The merchant didn’t appear convinced. “You obviously suspect him, or you wouldn�
�t be asking me these questions.”
Nottingham offered an eloquent shrug. There was a firmness in his voice as he spoke. “Right now he’s what I’ve got, Tom. Someone killed two people and dumped their bodies like – well, you know how they were found. I can’t just dismiss Carver because of who he is – or was. If he didn’t do anything, he might well have seen something useful.”
Williamson glumly nodded his understanding and acceptance. If the Constable needed Carver, the merchants wouldn’t stand in his way.
“Did you go and hear Morton preach last Saturday?” Nottingham asked casually, although he knew it was a clumsy shift of topic.
“No.” The merchant shook his head. “I’ve already got my faith. I’m not looking for another.”
“A few of your colleagues were there with Reverend Cookson. They didn’t seem to like what they heard.”
Williamson smiled slyly. “A little more fishing, Richard?”
Nottingham laughed, but felt no embarrassment. “Let’s say I’d like to know why they feel that way and what they might have been inclined to do about it.”
“Murder?” Williamson looked genuinely shocked.
“As I told his Worship, I’d be remiss if I didn’t investigate all the possibilities.”
The merchant eyed his companion thoughtfully before speaking. “All right. I heard there were a few who thought his words were more than a little dangerous. But no one was talking about anything as extreme as killing.”
“Who?” Nottingham wondered.
“I don’t know, I wasn’t there. But I heard Mr Dale and Alderman Goodison talking about it at the cloth market on Tuesday morning – before we heard Mr Morton was dead, you understand.”
“And what did they have to say?”
“They felt he should be asked to leave Leeds, that his words might give the people ideas above their station. Thankfully,” he added, “Mr Rawlinson wasn’t about at the time.” Williamson hesitated for a moment. “You know me well enough, Richard. I don’t play with politics. That’s all I heard and I’m quite content to leave it that way.”
“I wouldn’t ask for more,” the Constable assured him.
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